Deaf Space and Deaf Place in Three Countries: France, Japan, and the United States

• In Event: Roundtable Session 22
  In Roundtable Session: Curriculum of the Oppressed: Liberating Spaces Through Cultural Representations

Abstract

Educators are provided with a space for their classrooms and expected to transform this space in a place of learning. Educators need to consider children’s emotional, social, and academic worlds, as well as their culture. Through data collected from the Deaf Kindergartens in Three Countries Project, we encourage the importance of space and the distinction of space from place in signing schools for the deaf. These spaces are both aesthetically conductive and functional for deaf students. Using a cross-comparative analysis, we aim to view a theoretical Deaf Place as a collective term that encompasses all Deaf people, regardless of their national identity, modality, or linguistic backgrounds in a specific context.

Authors

• Patrick J Graham, Western Oregon University

• Jennifer Scarboro Hensley, Arizona Commission for the Deaf and the Hard of Hearing